How Sporting KC goalkeeper John Pulskamp has quietly become one of league’s best

Two minutes into the second half of Sporting Kansas City’s historic July 4 road win at Colorado, there was a 10-second play in which it looked like the Rapids might get level.

Young Sporting KC defender Ian James took a bad angle and was beaten to the ball. The Rapids had a two-on-nobody situation and Calvin Harris shot a pass to striker Rafael Navarro.

As Navarro readied himself, Sporting KC goalkeeper John Pulskamp came flying out of his net, closed down any angle for a shot and cleared the 1v1 situation.

Unfazed by an earlier mistake — he’d ventured off his line for a rebound and caught Djorde Mihailovic to give the Rapids a penalty kick — Pulskamp did what he has done so many times in recent weeks for Sporting KC.

He made the crucial save in a high-leverage moment, and Sporting went on to win 2-1.

“I think that’s what you need from a goalie,” defender and teammate Jansen Miller said. “You need one big save a game to keep you in the game or win the game. He (Pulskamp) is coming up huge and that’s a big reason why we’re going on this little run.”

About that little run: Sporting KC has picked up seven points in its last three matches and now sits just three points out of a Major League Soccer playoff spot with more than a third of the season to go.

Pulskamp has been named to the MLS Team of the Matchday in each of the last three weeks and has now earnd that distinction in four of his last six matches. He also leads MLS in saves.

Pulskamp’s performance started to pick up around the season’s 10-game mark, and his numbers illustrate it. In the first 10 games of the year, Sporting KC surrendered 21 goals-against, posting a goals-against mark under 2 just twice.

In 11 games since, Sporting has conceded just 17 goals — and has even allowed one or no goals in seven of those 11.

While some of that can be attributed to improved team defense overall, Pulskamp’s stats in the shot-stopping category have also gotten much better.

Post-Shot Expected Goals (PSxG) measures the likelihood that a shot on target will be a goal — a higher number indicates greater likelihood. Subtracting the goals-against (GA) from PSxG nets a differential that offers a pretty clear picture of a keeper’s shot-stopping ability: positive numbers are better.

Through the first 10 matches of 2025, Pulskamp’s PSxG/GA differential was -1.2. In the 11 since, that number has climbed to zero. He has also faced the highest PSxG across MLS.

So what has contributed to Pulskamp’s run of stellar play? He credits the repetition of seeing how dangerous situations unfold.

“I’m starting to recognize actions before they’re happening maybe a split-second quicker,” he said. “But in this sport, a split-second can be the difference between nearly saving the ball and saving the ball. I think it’s just that experience of reading the game … and being more in my comfort zone.”

Aside from his massive save against the Rapids, consider this sequence toward the end of a match against Charlotte FC.

Charlotte’s Kerwin Vargas received a pass in acres of space, but Pulskamp didn’t immediately come out. He waited, taking a couple of steps toward the ball before firing out at Vargas the moment the opponent lowered his head to set up a shot.

That save kept Sporting KC’s deficit at 1-0 instead of 2-0. Then, Kansas City scored twice during stoppage time to pull off a thriller of a victory.

Plays like that are keeping Sporting KC afloat in the Western Conference playoff race.

That race continues on Saturday against the Seattle Sounders. It’s a home match for Sporting, and kickoff is set for 7:40 p.m. at Children’s Mercy Park.